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Original poster

Which children's books do you STILL read and enjoy?

282 replies

Swizzler · 11/04/2007 19:10

Am re-reading Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence and yes, it is still good

So which children's books did you enjoy as a child and still read - read for your own pleasure, that is, not read to your DCs.

OP posts:
DrMarthaMcMoo · 11/04/2007 20:10

funnypeculiar - yup, that's ringing vague bells too.

funnypeculiar · 11/04/2007 20:08

Little White Horse is going right over my head, but reminds me of another one - set around the White Horse - about a blind girl (diane/dianna) - lots of mysticism around Weyland Smith, a 'magical' white horse that everyone was trying to catch/would only come to Diana ... was made into a BBC kids series I think... anyone??

DrMarthaMcMoo · 11/04/2007 20:08

I suspect my Mum of clearing out too - but we didn't ever move. My Mum lived in the same house from the age of about 7 - she and Dad moved back there after Grandma died to look after Grandad and lived there til...er...5 years ago when they finally moved to be closer to us 60 odd years in the same house....

DrMarthaMcMoo · 11/04/2007 20:06

Yes, salmon pink geraniums! Loveday adored them and that's why she had fallen out with...ooh, can't remember his name...and not married him. And there's a cook who is a hunchback dwarf. And swarthy gypsies. Oh it's all marvellously politically incorrect.

Littlefish · 11/04/2007 20:03

Was the Little White Horse the one about a girl living in a big house - something to do with salmon pink geraniums I seem to remember as well.

JanH · 11/04/2007 20:01

We moved house when I was 14 - that is a terrible age to move house - my mother just cleared the lot out

Have replaced them over the years but it's not the same...

DrMarthaMcMoo · 11/04/2007 20:00

That's why I remember the name then - I feel a big old Amazon order coming on. I wonder what happened to all my old books? I still have AofGG, and The Little White Horse, and the Narnia books...but the rest have vanished in the mists of time.

Some must have been from the library but I know I had my own copy of Ballet Shoes and The Secret Garden and A Little Princess.

JanH · 11/04/2007 19:59

Yes, fp, the Dickon actor actually has animals, and also a lovely calm mother who brings Jane round when she's on the verge of ruining the film by continuing to be horrid (because the spoilt-rotten Colin boy is winding her up) after Mary is supposed to start being nice.

The Dickon mother gets her to imagine the Colin boy as a snotty little chipmunk or something and she can ignore him after that.

Noel S is just fab

Spidermama · 11/04/2007 19:59

Oh. I've read the original post now.

I don't read Room on the Broom for my own pleasure.

Spidermama · 11/04/2007 19:58

Room on the Broom.

Original poster
Swizzler · 11/04/2007 19:58

Hmm, there were 3 Fossils. Can't remember how the book began

Aha - The Fossil sisters lived in the Cromwell Road
apparently

OP posts:
NadineBaggott · 11/04/2007 19:57

well not read for yonks but The Borrowers

JanH · 11/04/2007 19:56

The Fossils are in Ballet Shoes, moo - Pauline, Petrova and Posy, brought home one by one as orphans by GUM (Great-Uncle Matthew)

Original poster
Swizzler · 11/04/2007 19:55

that's a great book

Think there was a Tim - pianist - in the PG.

OP posts:
pointydog · 11/04/2007 19:54

slightly off-topic but I was in a school library recently and they had 'The FAmily from One End Street' by Eve Garnett which I had completely forgotten about. Just funny to see a book you read as akid.

DrMarthaMcMoo · 11/04/2007 19:52

It's the name that rings the faint bell - Fossils. Does it start off something like "there were five Fossils..."?

funnypeculiar · 11/04/2007 19:52

That's right, JanH (you've obviously reread more recently than me!) - I remember lots about the Dickon (wp?) character as well, being this lovely calming influence. And seem to remember the sickly boy is a PITA...
Did I make up Tim ... thought there was one of them who needed a piano to practice too ... ??

Original poster
Swizzler · 11/04/2007 19:51

Ah, PG not BS. As long as you aren;t dissing Petrova I don't mind

OP posts:
Original poster
Swizzler · 11/04/2007 19:50

Petrova is the grumpy one and she isn't grumpy, just sensible . Pauline reminded me horribly of my big sister

was always a bit disappointed by The Painted Garden

Dark is Rising is book of the moment - second one with Will in it is my especial fave

OP posts:
JanH · 11/04/2007 19:49

The older girl is the dancer - she was always going to be the star and was a bit overshadowed by grumpy getting into the film but meets Posy and goes to a dance class with a Russian.

Grumpy was Jane - I don't remember the other names. Jane befriends a dog on the beach and tells off its owner when it eats bad fish and the owner turns out to be the film producer who spots her for Mary.

funnypeculiar · 11/04/2007 19:46

Oh yes, The Painted garden - don't they end up meeting all the Fossils? As I remember it, there are 3 kids in the British family - the grumpy one, a younger girl who is a dancer, and perhaps a boy called Tim (or is that the dog??)

Ummmm, lots of these, but Dark is rising is a particualar fave...

bakedpotato · 11/04/2007 19:41

Just William
TH White, Mistress Masham's Repose.

DrMarthaMcMoo · 11/04/2007 19:41

A Painted Garden...that is ringing a very faint, very distant bell for me, Janh.

JanH · 11/04/2007 19:39

Oh oh oh, and A Painted Garden (Noel Streatfeild - where sad Englsih family goes to California, grumpy daughter makes film of Secret Garden and meets Pauline Fossil - had trouble getting my head round that!)

FrannyandZooey · 11/04/2007 19:39

I collect Noel Streatfeild (have about 40, I think) and also love E. Nesbit, Antonia Forest, K.M Peyton and others